On 31 March 2002, the Washington Post Magazine printed a cover article entitled A World of Their Own, telling the story of two Deaf lesbians from suburban Maryland who wanted to have a deaf child. The mothers, Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough, had already obtained sperm from a donor with five generations of deafness in his family; he is the biological father of their daughter Jehanne. The magazine article told of the women's quest to have another deaf baby, using the same donor. Gauvin McCullough was born around Thanksgiving 2001, and later proved to have a severe hearing loss.

As soon as the article was published, the story spread like wildfire around the world. Conservatives, deaf activists, and many others weighed in with opinions on the idea of creating a baby in its parents' image, and the fact that in this case the image meant the child would be considered to have a disability.
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